User reviews

I've been looking for the title of this movie since San Luis Obispo County made Unocal clean up funky little Avila Beach. It seems a pipeline under the street from their oil terminal was leaking oil under the stand. This led to Unocal buying up most of the downtown and then selling or trading properties.

Back to how I found it. It played last year on one of the premium channels, but I couldn't recall the title. Then last week I saw Seymour Cassel co-starring in TV's new "HEIST" show on one of the networks. I recognized his face, but not his silver hair. It was blonde in California Dreaming, so I checked his bio and found the film.

I agree, I thought it was an early seventies film, not 1979. But then the old central coast town of Avila was timeless. Small beach, volleyball court sloped to the ocean, unpainted building on the corner where he lived was an abandoned property owned by an eccentric who held on to everything he owned.

All of the old Avila Beach is torn down now. Even the only historic building in town--the Custom House. The name now exists as a new restaurant down the street at the foot of the pier.

For those who want to see what a small California beach town once looked like, rent or buy "California Dreaming". It's all that's left of the once funky town of Avila, where no one has ever drowned playing in the local surf. Reason? There is very little undertow. The waves crash and take you back to the beach. Board surfing is non-existent.

A nerdy guy from Chicago (Dennis Christopher) moves to the coast of SoCal where he makes friends with the owner of a local hangout (Seymour Cassel) and gets to stay at his house, but this annoys his college-age daughter (Glynnis O'Connor). In the meantime, the youth tries to fit in with the 'hip' surfers (John Calvin, John Fain and Jimmy Van Patten).

Shot in October, 1977, but not released until early 1979, "California Dreaming" is a coming-of-age dramedy that takes Sam Elliott's "Lifeguard" from a few years earlier and adds comedic touches. I wouldn't relate this to those goofy 60's beach flicks because it's more realistic. People forget that the originator of the "beach party film" genre was 1959's "Gidget" (the movie with Sandra Dee, not the TV series with Sally Field), which was a beach drama with moving depth and not zany at all. Sure, this one features a little amusing goofiness, but it's mostly a believable story.

Dorothy Tristan has a significant role as Duke's ex-wife, Fay. She was director John Hancock's wife from 1975 until her death in 2023. Speaking of John, he helmed the artistic "Let's Scare Jessica to Death" from the early 70s, so he wasn't exactly a slouch.

This obviously influenced one of the greatest coming-of-age flicks, "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," released a few years later. It's not as good, but not far off either. It's superior to the overrated "Back to the Beach" (1987).

While the movie has a warm, amusing heart underneath it all, there's some top nudity and sexual talk/situations corresponding to the milieu. So stay away if that offends you.

It runs 1 hour, 32 minutes, and was shot at Avila Beach, California, which is 195 miles northwest of Los Angeles. Other nearby locations include: Morro Bay to the north and the theater in San Luis Obispo, which is just southeast of Morro Bay; meanwhile studio work was done in Los Angeles.

GRADE: B-/B.

This movie starts out like some light hearted goof. I thought it was going to be like caddyshack or meatballs or something. Then about half way through, I'm getting into it. It feels like a bunch of people I know, and its almost like hanging out with them.

As the movie winds down toward the end of summer, you can feel it like a kid who just wants 20 more minutes before he has to go to bed. The drama starts to creep into the comedy and you never see it coming. Finally, you get blindsided and before you know it, you're moved almost to tears.

Someone said it felt more like 75 than 79. I agree. It actually felt older than that, except for the cars.

Great movie.

When our family first got cable this is one of the first movies I watched on HBO. I was 14 or 15 watching an R rated movie and thought it was the coolest thing ever. Nerd from the mid-west trying to fit in with the cool kids. All the cliches are there but worth watching.

Seymour Cassel gives a great performance, a tour de force. His acting as supposed washed up beach stud Duke Slusarski will always have a place in my heart. The film is centered around a nerd who just came to the beach in hopes of honoring his dead brother's dreams. What he gets is lame surf hijinks. Guys cheating, guys fighting, and guys getting drunk going to watch surf documentaries with the whole town of LA on a Friday night. Duke takes the nerd in and tries to teach him how playing volleyball is like touching a woman. Next time my woman talks back I will pretend I'm spiking the ball.

Back to Seymour Cassel. The end of the movie turns into a good drama, since the first half of the film really had no point. Duke plays a wonderful game of volleyball, the best he's played in over ten years. The way the scene is shot is beautiful. You can feel the heart this man has for the game and the love of being on the beach. Those five minutes will go down as one of my favorites of all time. 3/10 Bad to Fair, the rest of the movie was lame.

As Jennifer Denuccio used to say on Square Pegs, "Gag me out the door." I would definitely vote this movie on IMDB's Worst movie list.

Dennis Christopher plays T.T., a guy from Chicago who goes to California peddling his brother's jazz records. He is supposed to be a barney placed in the locals-only surfing community. But he acts more like he is new to civilization (just try to get through his sex scene without squirming). There are also the on-going adventures of the rest of the local population that the viewer must endure. That of Duke (Seymour Cassell), the volleyball expert who tries to get T.T. to act like a normal human being, the obnoxious drunk surfers who cheat on their girlfriends, and the guy who makes a bet with another that he can live in car for sixth months.

California Dreaming is just a big old mess. It starts out like a typical seventies romp, complete with bad 70s music (even though this movie came out one year shy of the 80s). And Dennis Christopher comes off as the most irritable loser, it makes the movie hard to watch (keep your finger on the fast forward button). Even if this movie was supposed to be about the surfer culture, the surf scenes are almost total garbage. The people at the surf contest look as though they can't keep from falling asleep.

I guess the only cool thing is seeing Tanya Roberts outside of her role as Midge on the sitcom "That's 70s show." And Cassell wasn't bad, he was just in a bad movie.

This is one of those movies I hope to see again. I often surf the internet hoping to find this movie released on DVD. A great soundtrack, a good cast and an interesting angle on growing up... surf style. Includes the best recording of "California Dreamin" extent, and the instrumental "Brothers Theme" is haunting! The sub plot of re-living the glory days by an over the hill surfer in contrast with the adolescence of the kids around him provides sort of a retrospective view of life. It is a deeper movie than it seems to be on the surface, which makes the comedy funnier, and the sad moments even more so, kind of like a good episode of MASH. A cleaned up 5.1 enhanced DVD release of this movie would be most welcome by me!

At first you would think it was about a guy from the mid-west trying to fit in but that changed overtime and there were several side stories, that is the tie in to Fast times. The difference is the stories meshed together better in Fast Times. This movie was all over the place and TT playing the trumpet never really focused on and TT's reactions to situations was odd at times.

It is a fun little movie but not a must watch.

I saw this in the movie theater back in 1979 when I was in my early twenties. I remember being enchanted with the California surfing lifestyle... the chicks, the promiscuity, the absolute optimism. I emulated the cheating fun loving surfers, I fell in love with Marcia and Stephanie. I thought back then that Duke was a foolish old man trying to relive his glory days with his ancient over the hill ex-wife. I laughed at his pathetic attempts to hold on to his youth. I just got a vcr copy on ebay and watched it with my 10 year old daughter. She couldn't understand the tears I cried while watching Duke, such a young man now, with a vibrant, beautiful ex-wife - finally getting up the courage to grasp out for his life long-dream, coming so close - and yet, so far...Just another run of the mill surfing movie? I don't think so. The pity is that most movies don't move us the way this one does, and that with just a little creativity, they could. **** out of ****

I remember this movie finally, probably because of Glenys O'Connor and Tanya Roberts. However, watching it almost 50 years later, it's pretty bad. The characters are neither likable nor interesting. The acting is marginal. The writing has people doing senseless things that don't further the plot one iota. In fact, this entire movie could probably be edited down to a half hour and it would be a better movie.

I wanted to see this movie, to show my husband what life was like growing up in SoCal hanging out at the beach in the 1970's. I didn't think it would be much of a movie but hoped that it would capture some of the "scene" as I remembered it... I was not disappointed! I "thought" I saw some of the kids I went to high school with in the background... I "thought" I was seeing old landmarks I remembered... I was really surprised to find it was filmed on the central coast, and that pretty much everyone in it was an actor! If you want to see a film that truly captures that time... early to mid 1970's in SoCal (Newport, Huntington, Laguna, Capistrano) THIS is the movie to watch... Yes, we were THAT shallow and yet uninvolved with everything going on in the "real world" because THE BEACH and anything that happened there was ALL that mattered... the sun DID shine like diamonds off the surface of the water...there were small crowds of people and wide open spaces of beach everyday... guys were obsessed with surfing and girls were obsessed with getting the guy... WHAT a Time Capsule! The acting is good in that these are all actors yet they portrayed the "scene" so well if you lived through it like I did, you just might be asking yourself if you know them... the storyline is not too far off from real life at that time either... but you had to live then and there for it to be real for you... I can almost smell the Coppertone...

Back in the days when HBO was young, I remember seeing the previews of this movie and wanting to watch it. Living in Hawaii most of my life, it was nothing new for me in terms of the "beach scene." While watching it I felt compelled with the story and characters. TT was such an obvious dork, but I pulled for him as he began to blend in with the locals. Glynnis O'Connor was an attraction with that 70s style bikini and the surfers led by Mike were comical and immature. My friends and I frequently used quotes from the film to goof on each other, and today it definitely reminds me of the times back then. Similar to the 80s movie "North Shore" in the theme of an outsider who tries to make it with the locals in a beach environment. I am still looking for either a clean VHS copy or a release to DVD. Last time I saw this was on cable a few years ago, and I should have recorded it. A must see if you want to re-live the times, it's a shame that some of today's youngsters probably won't get it. I give it a generous 8 rating because of what this movie brings to me, a humorous flashback of that era.

I thought I was dreaming, "California Dreaming" that is, when I stumbled across this movie on cable early this morning. But the dream soon turned into a recurring nightmare. The movie itself was as good as I remembered it, but what happened to the outstanding version of The Mamas & The Papas song California Dreamin' performed by the 1970s band America.

I have considerable history with this movie. I saw it for the first time on cable in the early '80s. I thought it was a very enjoyable movie but it was the version of the song California Dreamin' that hooked me. I recollect putting a lot of time into trying to find the soundtrack. Alas, my efforts were futile.

A decade or so later I saw part of the movie again on cable. I was stoked about getting to hear this song again. I cranked up the volume and prepared to groove, but the song never appeared. I could not remember at what point in the movie this song played. I missed the first few minutes of the movie so I figured it must have been in the opening credits. This rekindled my desire to find the soundtrack. I searched for weeks, again to no avail.

Fast forward to this morning. I watched the movie end to end. But where was this damn song that has eluded me for decades? I began to wonder if I had imagined this song or maybe it was in a different movie.

The IMDb came to my rescue. After reading the user comments about this movie I thankfully realized I was not crazy. The soundtrack was apparently altered. I searched the Internet for the soundtrack but after all these years I still can't find it. I did, however, find the song. It is on the CD, America - The Complete Greatest Hits available on Amazon.com.

Closure at long last. Thank you IMDb and Amazon.com!!!

"The 'Citizen Kane' of Beach Movies." Keith Kuramoto, Cinema Graduate, San Francisco State University

"This film was the template for all the teen-sex, coming-of-age, boys-and-boobs films of the 80's and 90's - From 'Porky's' to 'American Pie.'" Brian MacGregor, Cinema Graduate, San Francisco State University

This definitive Southern California sun-and-surf cult film is sacred in Japan!

Where's the DVD for this film?

Vestron Video!Are you listening? MGM: Where's the SEQUEL? California Dreamt!

This movie was released in 1979 and is different from both the purely exploitative (or "sexploitative") 70's films that came before it or the more adolescent-themed 80's films that came after it (the male protagonist here is definitely pretty horny and probably a virgin, but the movie is more than just the usual allegedly hilarious quest to "lose it"). The acting is really good, especially that of Dennis Christopher who plays the "fish-out-of-water" main protagonist (and who really should have gone farther than the other Dennis, Quaid, with whom he starred in "Breaking Away" that same year), and perennial character actor Seymour Cassel, who plays an older surfer who takes the protagonist under his wing.

The female cast is headed by Glynnis O'Connor, who plays Casell's daughter and the protagonist's improbable love interest. She is not a great actress, but is certainly easy to look at (and she provides all the movie's nudity). Supporting parts go to Tanya Roberts and Stacy Nelkin, but unfortunately the less talented one (Roberts) gets the much bigger (and regrettably non-naked) role as the neglected girlfriend of an egotistical surfer. There's a lot of gratuitous surfing (this being a California movie and all), but not as much of the dumb hijinks you usually find in these movies (OK, there is a stupid side-story involving one dumb guy who has to spend a month in his car as part of some bet he made with a rich kid, all so the rich kid can secretly get it on with the guy's gold-digging girlfriend. . .).

This movie kind of resembles "Malibu Beach", but with better acting and more of a plot. It probably wouldn't have gotten made a couple years later after "Porky's" had set the horny-teenagers-trying-to-"lose-it" template firmly in stone. But it is quite a bit more realistic than deluge of "teen comedies" that followed that later film, and (for me anyway) that makes it much more interesting.

I don't know how I ever happened upon this movie when I saw it the first time around. Was it on TV? I think this was even before VHS tapes and corner video stores, at least where I was living. Something about the movie struck me at that time. I'd forgotten about it and years later I tried to track it down. It wasn't until only a few years ago living in Spain that I finally found it, as now you can find everything in seconds. There are no "lost classics" or lost anything on the internet.

California Dreaming goes beyond the usual adolescent coming-of-age stories of boobs and boners that have been done a million times, not that this one is particularly masterful, it's just different. It introduces the protagonist (as well as the rest of America and the planet) to the strange world of Southern California beach culture.

I could forgive anyone who thinks less of this movie than I, but I think that if you watch it with an open mind, you just may find a bit of magic in it as I did over 40 years ago. Man, I wouldn't say that time flies, but sometimes you seem to lose track of the clock. But life is a little like football; no one knows how much time is left in the game.

I first saw this movie when I was stationed in Hawaii in the Navy in the early eighties. It's a simple little "put your brain on hold for an hour and a half" movie. Don't expect a lot of plot or a masterpiece, just a fun little "beach movie."

As for the town of Avila Beach, yes, most of it is gone. I found out where they filmed the movie, and I used to LOVE when I moved to Sacramento, and my National Guard unit would spend it's 2 week annual training in San Luis Obispo, (the classic Fremont Theater in town is used in the movie) because I could visit Avila. The Onion rings at the Old Custom House were the best!!! The restaurant was even advertised in the movie, (On the side of the taxi driving around town), and there where pictures of the filming of the movie on the walls. It was actually a customs house at one time.

When I heard that they were going to have to tear down the downtown strip due to the fuel leakage over the years, I was heartbroken. Fortunately, they were able to save and "store" two historic buildings, (The Avila Grocery and one other building), and put them back on the strip after the project, but the Custom house was too fragile to move, and they had to tear it down. Having a brand new restaurant with the same name is an insult to the old place. They should have just let it fade into memory. Now, Avila looks like any other generic California beach town.

Maybe that's why I love this movie so much, because it reminds me of the old funky town of Avila Beach that I (and so many of the locals) loved so much. I'm glad Hulu decided to put it up.

According to George Carlin, the term "Extremely not bad" should be used more often ... as in, "Gosh, this turnip casserole is extremely not bad."

California Dreaming follows the trials and tribulations of TT (Dennis Christopher) as he arrives in California with some recordings of his recently-deceased brother's jazz music. The idea is to play the music near the ocean, because his brother loved the ocean. While in California, TT stays with an old surfer (Wynn, in probably the best role he's ever had ... should be, though, because he wrote the script), who offers TT a place to live. TT becomes a surfer, woos his landlord's daughter, gropes gratuitously-displayed breasts; so far, it's pretty standard surf-movie fare.

Near the end, though, there was an actual plot twist; the plot had been so thin up until that point that I didn't even notice it coming. I'm not as easily manipulated now as I did when I first saw this movie (when I was about 15), but I was so blindsided by this development that it actually gave the ending a strong emotional impact, for me.

Great cinema, it ain't, but Glynnis O'Connor and Tonya Roberts were both hotties, the surfing scenes are pretty cool, and the acting is convincing, if not outstanding.